Supporting Children with Disabilities, Bangladesh

On 1^st February MAITS started the third online Training of Trainers programme with the aim of training up to 26 professionals to become future MAITS Master Trainers. The organisations involved are the Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralysed in Bangladesh (CRP, Bangladesh) and Ziauddin University as well as one trainee joining from Al-Rozan Association for Special Children in Pakistan.

The training sessions ran over a two-week period, with each session lasting 2 hours comprising of 11 sessions in total. Following the feedback from the previous training, the International Master Trainers have decided to reduce the time spent on some of the slides to ensure that sessions do not overrun and to focus on training participants on the role of Master Trainer. We also introduced a polling to be run at the end of each session which helped ensure positive participation to sessions and encouraged participants to be as interactive as possible over Zoom.

The training concluded on 22^nd February 2021, after which the newly qualified Master Trainers trained the 60 Community Health Workers (CHWs) in respective countries to benefit their community settings. 

This is the first time MAITS has collaborated with CRP Bangladesh. The organisation, inaugurated in 1979, was founded to meet the desperate needs of people with disabilities. Over the years, CRP hasbecome recognized as an internationally renowned organization that serves and rehabilitates people with disabilities. MAITS is training young professionals from CRP and the team of prospective Master trainers are currently serving as Clinical Occupational Therapists, Clinical Physiotherapists and Clinical Speech and Language Therapists. 

60 CHWS are ready to reached out the families of children with special needs. The home visits started in October 2021 and MAITS is collecting the progress reports of the children for the next 3 quarters.